Sociology and the Race Problem: The Failure of a Perspective

By James B. McKee

Book Overview

Tracing developments in the sociology of race relations from the 1920s to the 1960s, McKee maintains that sociologists assumed the United States would move unimpeded toward modernization and assimilation, aided by industrialization and urbanization. The fatal flaw in their perspective was the notion that blacks were culturally inferior, backward, and pre-modern, a people who had lost their own culture and couldn't grasp that of their new society. Designed to detail a failure the author says is widely acknowledged but little examined, this book will be of interest to both specialists and general readers.
"Masterful. . . . McKee transports the reader back to the intellectual world in which the early sociologists worked and does not simply treat them as evil racists. His approach is informed by the sociology of knowledge." -- Lewis M. Killian, author of The Impossible Revolution, Phase 2: Black Power and the American Dream

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0252063287
• ISBN13: 9780252063282
• Release Date: August 1993
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Superb Critical Review of the history of Race in Sociology

Professor McKee (Michigan State Univ. Sociology - emeritus) has dug deep to uncover unnoticed, much less unquestioned, presumptions on the part of sociologists of race in America. His thorough reviews of the popular literature throughout the century give the introductory reader, as well as the seasoned scholar, a refresher of what's 'out there,' and how we may approach the issues with a fundamentally different and more humanistic way.. One section that impressed me in particular was his review of the history, actors involved, and suggestions brought forth by Gunnar Myrdal's "American Dilemma" which broke new ground in both social science's approach to race, as well as the focus on the methodology of the social scientist.This book, as mentioned above, is recommended reading for all students and scholars who have an interest in the history of social science's treatement of the problems of the 'color line,' which DuBois explicitly states, which is the 'main problem of the 20th century.' If the 21st century is to be less violent and racist one, McKee's book is a good example of the necessary refocusing of a certain aspect of the social reality - the issue of race/racism.